Marshall Field V closing family foundation

Marshall Field V, the 69-year-old great-great-grandson of department store founder Marshall Field, is closing the Jamee and Marshall Field Foundation and transferring its assets to a special fund at the Chicago Community Trust, the Chicago Tribune reported. Field has told trust executives that the non-profit organization, which helps affluent people donate their money to charity, will receive a portion of his estate when he dies, according to the Tribune report.

Although no one would reveal numbers, The Jamee and Marshall Field Foundation had a little more than $4 million in assets at the end of 2008, according to Internal Revenue Service records. A trust executive also said the value of the Fields' estate gift would be much larger.

In 1984, Field and his half-brother, Ted Field, with whom he had been feuding, liquidated Field Enterprises Inc., which included the sale of the Chicago Sun-Times, the Tribune article said. Field fell off the Forbes 400 list in 1993, the article said.

Field has set up this new endowment fund at the trust in such a way that he can continue to donate to the causes he cares about, but with spending limits. The principal, for instance, can't be touched. Those limits will also apply to his children and grandchildren. But after his grandchildren die, the trust will take control of all the money.